Dominant Dems

— The Re­pub­lic­ans were not much of a Grand Old Party in North­east Philly last week. Demo­crats won throughout the area.

Allyson Schwartz talks about the ex­cit­ment of the cam­paign while await­ing the elec­tion res­ults at the War­wick Hotel in Cen­ter City, Phil­adelphia, Pa. (Maria Pouch­nikova)

Demo­crats have dom­in­ated pres­id­en­tial races in North­east Phil­adelphia since 1992, and the trend grew even big­ger this year.

In the 14 wards that make up the North­east, a Re­pub­lic­an hasn’t won a loc­al ward since George H.W. Bush did in 1988.

In 2008, Pres­id­ent Barack Obama sur­prised some by sweep­ing the North­east, rack­ing up 64 per­cent of the vote in his race against John Mc­Cain. Turnout was down this year in the race between Obama and Mitt Rom­ney, but Obama’s win­ning per­cent­age was up to 68 per­cent.

The race this year between the pres­id­en­tial con­tenders was closer in Pennsylvania and na­tion­ally than it was four years ago, but not in North­east Philly.

State Rep. John Taylor (R-177th dist.) said some voters like to stick with the in­cum­bent, even when things aren’t go­ing well. He also poin­ted to Obama’s sup­port among or­gan­ized labor and what he saw as Demo­crat­ic scare tac­tics on Medi­care and So­cial Se­cur­ity.

Re­pub­lic­ans have to get to work win­ning over voters, ac­cord­ing to Taylor.

“We have to reach out. We’re a sales force. We have to make sure what we’re selling, they’re buy­ing,” he said. “This time around, that was not the case.”

Marc Collazzo, Taylor’s chief of staff and Re­pub­lic­an lead­er of the 58th Ward, was pleased when he saw the first re­turns. His polling place is at St. Thomas Syro-Malab­ar Cath­ol­ic Church, at 608 Welsh Road. Four di­vi­sions vote there, and Obama won by just a nar­row mar­gin.

In the end, Rom­ney won more than 45 per­cent of the vote in the 58th Ward. That’s bet­ter than he did in most of the wards, but not good enough, in Collazzo’s view.

“It’s a shame we grade on a curve now,” he said.

Collazzo, whose ward re­ceived help from Rus­si­an-speak­ing poll work­ers re­cruited by at­tor­ney Mar­ina Kats, said in­fight­ing among the two fac­tions of the Phil­adelphia GOP didn’t help. He said Re­pub­lic­ans must work “triply” as hard in the fu­ture.

“The North­east is blue-col­lar uni­on folk who his­tor­ic­ally vote Demo­crat. That’s how they’re told and pushed,” he said. “Those are the hurdles that we face and have to over­come. We have to make our um­brella big­ger.”

City Con­trol­ler Alan Butkovitz, Demo­crat­ic lead­er of the 54th Ward, said loc­al voters star­ted the pat­tern of vot­ing for a Demo­crat­ic pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate with Bill Clin­ton in 1992.

By 2000, loc­al Re­pub­lic­ans be­came vic­tims of straight-party vot­ing, with state Sen. Hank Sal­vatore los­ing his seat and Taylor and then-state Reps. George Ken­ney and John Perzel win­ning nar­rowly.

“The dam broke,” Butkovitz said.

Butkovitz said Medi­care and pock­et­book is­sues are tops on the minds of loc­al voters.

“People in the North­east don’t think the Re­pub­lic­an Party rep­res­ents their in­terest,” he said. “The con­stitu­ency is in a habit of vot­ing Demo­crat­ic at this point.”

“It’s heart­en­ing,” he said. “I know Mike Tom­lin­son worked hard. In a lot of ways, that’s why it is a heart­en­ing sign. I ap­pre­ci­ate the con­fid­ence the people of North­east Phil­adelphia have in me.”

Taylor took 56.9 per­cent of the vote in turn­ing back Demo­crat Wil­li­am Dun­bar.

Much of the dis­trict is in trans­ition, and Taylor util­ized more than 40 Span­ish-speak­ing vo­lun­teers.

“They made a dif­fer­ence,” he said.

Still, the bulk of the dis­trict went for Pres­id­ent Barack Obama, push­ing the straight Demo­crat­ic but­ton.

“It’s tough swim­ming up cur­rent,” Taylor said. “I al­ways have to worry about the straight pulls.”

State Rep. Kev­in Boyle (D-172nd dist.) piled up 68 per­cent of the vote to beat Re­pub­lic­an Al Tauben­ber­ger. He be­lieves voters re­war­ded him for what he called a bi­par­tis­an agenda to make neigh­bor­hoods strong and safe.

In an elec­tion night party at Benny the Bum’s, he thanked his fam­ily, of­fice staff, cam­paign vo­lun­teers, uni­ons, some loy­al ward lead­ers and com­mit­tee people.

“I look for­ward to be­ing your ward lead­er in two years,” he said.

Boyle plans to chal­lenge Ber­nice Hill, Demo­crat­ic lead­er of the 63rd Ward, in the spring of 2014. Hill and fel­low ward lead­ers John Sabat­ina and Pat Par­kin­son sup­por­ted chal­lenger Dan Collins in the primary. The law­maker and those ward lead­ers re­main foes.

“I’m go­ing to win if I run,” he said of the 63rd Ward race.

• • •

U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-13th dist.) took 69 per­cent of the vote against Re­pub­lic­an Joe Rooney. She pos­ted her biggest mar­gins in the new areas of her dis­trict.

The in­cum­bent won 91 per­cent in the Frank­ford-based 23rd Ward and 95 per­cent in the 42nd and 61st wards in Ol­ney and Felton­ville. She and oth­er Demo­crats be­nefited from the straight-party vot­ing of Obama sup­port­ers.

Schwartz said her pri­or­it­ies in her fifth term will in­clude tax policy and Medi­care — cut­ting costs while pro­tect­ing be­ne­fits. She ad­ded that she also will con­tin­ue to pro­mote in­vest­ment in bi­o­tech­no­logy, which she thinks will gen­er­ate jobs.

Re­pub­lic­ans main­tained con­trol of the U.S. House, while Demo­crats kept their ma­jor­ity in the Sen­ate. Schwartz, who cel­eb­rated her vic­tory at the War­wick Hotel in Cen­ter City, hopes the par­tis­an grid­lock of the last two years in Con­gress can be re­solved.

“I’ve worked the past two years to find Re­pub­lic­an part­ners and will con­tin­ue to do that,” she said. “I’m hop­ing the Re­pub­lic­an lead­er­ship will be will­ing to work with Pres­id­ent Obama.”

• • •

Obama crushed Rom­ney in the five di­vi­sions that vote at Ben­jamin Frank­lin Ele­ment­ary School, at Rising Sun and Chel­ten­ham av­en­ues in Lawndale/Cres­centville.

The vot­ing took place in the school cafet­er­ia, and one wall fea­tures a large mur­al of Obama, com­plete with the words “hope” and “change,” a quote and his cam­paign logo.

Re­pub­lic­ans com­plained, and GOP at­tor­ney Linda A. Kerns filed a court mo­tion. Com­mon Pleas Court Judge John Milton Younge Jr. ordered that the judge of elec­tions in the 18th di­vi­sion cov­er the mur­al in its en­tirety so that the mur­al could not be seen.

The pres­id­ent won those five di­vi­sions by a com­bined vote of 1,755 to 140.

The di­vi­sions are filled largely with minor­ity and Demo­crat­ic voters. The mur­al could have fea­tured Rom­ney, run­ning mate Paul Ry­an and their fam­il­ies, and the out­come prob­ably wouldn’t have been dif­fer­ent.

• • •

The stu­dents at Blessed Trin­ity Re­gion­al Cath­ol­ic School par­ti­cip­ated in a mock pres­id­en­tial elec­tion on Nov. 5.

The young­sters in pre-kinder­garten through eighth grade chose Obama over Rom­ney by a count of 402-200.

Liber­tari­an Gary John­son and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, whose names ap­peared on the Pennsylvania bal­lot, were not in­cluded in this elec­tion.

Lib­rar­i­an Susan Mc­Call co­ordin­ated the mock elec­tion.

Un­til this year, Blessed Trin­ity was known as St. Timothy. The new name is the res­ult of a mer­ger of St. Tim’s and Pope John Paul II, in Brides­burg. The merged school is loc­ated at Levick and Hawthorne streets.

The stu­dents learned about the elec­tion from the start of the school year. Teach­ers out­lined the his­tory and the pro­cess of pres­id­en­tial elec­tions. Mu­sic classes sung pat­ri­ot­ic tunes.

The chil­dren in the up­per grades will ana­lyze the vote totals and stat­ist­ics for math class.

Lead­ing up to the vot­ing, the sixth-grade art classes de­signed posters, many fea­tur­ing don­keys and ele­phants, the mas­cots of the Demo­crat­ic and Re­pub­lic­an parties.

The in­cum­bent Demo­crat pre­vailed thanks to posters that read, “Vote Obama all the way” and “Vote for Obama. Not Mitt Rom­ney,” with a slash across a pic­ture of an ele­phant.

The Re­pub­lic­an chal­lenger lost des­pite posters of sup­port that read, “Vote for Mitt. He cares,” “Rom­ney is the bet­ter choice” and “Rom­ney for 45th Pres­id­ent.”

The voters cast their bal­lots be­hind the pri­vacy of a cur­tain. They used cray­ons — one col­or for Obama and an­oth­er for Rom­ney — to mark a pa­per bal­lot. Each voter re­ceived a mini­ature Amer­ic­an flag after tak­ing part in the elec­tion.

Blessed Trin­ity was closed on Elec­tion Day be­cause it is the home polling place for the 55th Ward, 9th and 13th di­vi­sions. ••